Absolute Beginner? Check out These Guitar Strumming Patterns for Beginners

Most beginner guitar students get stuck on strumming and timing, and that's usually because they're learning super complicated strumming patterns way too soon, and they're trying to move faster than they should. So what I'm going to show you in this video is two very good strumming patterns that will help you get started working on your timing and your strumming, and you'll be able to use it for thousands of songs. Now before we get into the actual strumming patterns, I have some very important tips I want to tell you about strumming. These are kind of common mistakes that students make. The first one is your strumming hand, all right? So if you're a right-handed person, that's going to be your right hand. If you're a left-handed person, that's going to be your left hand, all right? Your strumming hand acts like a pendulum, okay? So it is constantly swinging up and down just like this, okay? And it shouldn't stop, okay? So a lot of times with students is they're fine doing a strumming pattern, but then sometimes we introduce the chord changes and we stop the hand. All of a sudden the strumming hand stops. So we always want to work on just keeping this hand going. So let me have you do— just rest your fretting hand, okay? Just rest it on the string so that it's muted like this, and And I just wanna work on just the rhythm of this pendulum when we're gonna be doing down up, down up, down up, down up. Okay?

Down up, down up, down up, down up.

And all I want you to do is remember to breathe. A lot of people forget to breathe and then they get tense. So relax, try to relax as best you can.

Breathe. Now we're just doing down up, down up, down up, down up, down up, down up— down, up, down, up, down, up, down.

Okay, so now what we're going to do is we're going to try and hit some strings. So don't worry, we're not going to play chord or anything just yet. All I want to do is we're going to practice sometimes hitting the strings and sometimes not. Okay, so just swing your hand and just practice sometimes catching a string, catching it on the down strum or catching it on the up strum. Okay, sometimes you hit it down, Sometimes you hit it up. Okay, and I just want you to remember, whether you're strumming the strings or not, this hand is just a pendulum that continuously moves. We don't really do anything different with the strumming hand, and that's an important thing to keep in mind as we get into the strumming patterns. All right, so I'm going to show you a basic quarter note strumming pattern. So think of quarters, 4 pieces. Okay, so So that means there's going to be 4 strums— 1, 2, 3, 4— and they're all going to be on the down strum. Okay, so it'll sound like this. I am going to make an E minor chord since that's one of the first easy chords that I teach in my 7-Level Guitar System. So we're gonna use our first finger and our second finger. Okay, index and middle. First finger is going to go to the second fret on that A string. Okay, which is the second one from the top. And then the second finger is going to go right below it, second fret on the D string. And if you're new to guitar, these little blocks, these little spaces are called frets. And this is 1, 2, 3, 4, so forth and so on. So again, first finger on the A string, okay, second one down from the top, and then right underneath it you're gonna put your second finger on the D string, which is the third one down from the top. Okay, this is just a very, very simple E minor chord. Chord. And don't worry about it if it's muted, or don't worry about it sounding perfect. That's not what we're working on in this lesson. We're working on the strumming. So if the chord doesn't sound the greatest, that's okay. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to play 4 down strums. It's going to sound like this: 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now this might sound like super simple, but it's really the rhythm and timing that we're working on. So this type of strumming pattern works really good in kind of pop music and rock music. So think of something like Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, Back in Black by AC/DC, The Sound of Silence, um, by Simon and Garfunkel, uh, Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. Anything with a really strong 4-count, okay? It's going to be 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. So a lot of pop music and a lot of rock music use this style of strumming. So I'm going to introduce a challenge because I mentioned earlier that some students have really good timing and strumming until we start introducing chord changes, okay? And then they're so focused on the chord change, they forget about the strumming hand and keeping that pendulum going. So I'm We're gonna do a little challenge here, just doing a simple chord change and working on keeping that strumming going. Again, remember, it's— I don't care if the chords sound good or bad, it's the strumming we're focusing on. Remember, a song is going to sound better with a simple rhythm and good timing versus a song with really, really complicated strumming and bad timing. Trust me, it's not going to sound good. So I'm going to teach you a second chord. Okay, I'm just going to teach you an easy C chord. So we have that E minor chord, okay, so we have that one already. And then what we're going to do is we're going to leave the second finger in place, just slide it back a little bit in the fret, and we're going to move this first finger to our B string, which is the second one up from the bottom, okay, in that first fret. Okay, so it looks like this and it sounds like that. Okay, so it's what I call my easy C chord, and I like teaching it this way. Okay, there is the full C chord, so if you're someone who's like, but I play my C chord like this, That's okay, that's a full C chord. This is for absolute beginners just getting started. It's easier to move one finger than it is to move two or three of them at the same time, trust me. So we're gonna go E minor, okay, and move that finger down. This will give us our easy C chord, okay? Back to E minor and back to our easy C chord. So what we're going to do now is we're going to introduce that strumming over a chord change, because this is where I find the timing starts getting a little wonky for students. So we're going to do this, we're going to go 1, 2, 3, 4 to C, 1, 2, 3, 4 to C or E minor, 2, 3, 4 back to C, 2, 3, 4 E minor, 2, 3, 4 to C, 2, 3, 4 E minor, 2, 3, 4 and C. Okay, so you notice my hand, the pendulum we were talking about, my hand's not doing anything different if I was just strumming an E minor chord, okay, or switching to a C chord, okay. So what happens with a lot of students— this is a very important tip, okay, we're going to put a little warning up here because it's so important that I want you to pay attention here. So like I said, The reason a lot of students, a lot of beginner guitar students, have problems with rhythm— it's not because you have problems with rhythm, it's because you're thinking about the chord change too much. And that comes with time. So for this particular exercise, when you're practicing, again, if your chords kind of sound like this, that's fine with me. When you're working on strumming, when you're a beginner, My tip for you is to focus on one thing at a time because your brain doesn't have the bandwidth yet because you're learning new skills. It doesn't have the bandwidth yet to focus on both of these hands at the same time. So you need to focus on one thing at a time, and you're going to focus on your strumming hand. Even— I don't even care if you get the right chord over here. The key is to do a chord change and keep it smooth. So let's do that one more time for practice, starting on E minor. We're gonna go a little bit faster this time. E minor to C. Ready? Here we go. 1, 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3. On your own.

Now, if you guys don't know who I am, my name is Lauren Bateman and I specialize in helping older adults over the age of 50 learn to have fun playing their guitar. I break things down step by step because sometimes, you know, as we get older, our fingers don't move as good as they used to. So sometimes breaking these down— things down into these baby steps— my students find super, super helpful. But I told you I was going to show you a second pattern, and this one has a completely different feel and it has a different count. All right, so that last pattern we were counting to 4, and I told you it works really great with pop songs, really great with rock songs. Now this pattern, we're going to be counting to 3, and this is what we call a waltz pattern. We're going to be counting 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. All right, and you feel like you can kind of sway with the music back and forth. So think of songs like Norwegian Wood by the Beatles, uh, another one would be Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley, um, Perfect by Ed Sheeran, Amazing Grace if you want to think of a hymnal, these are songs that kind of— you sway with the music. And like I said, we're going to be counting to 3. So first we're going to just work on the count because it's a little bit of a different timing, and then we're going to add something else special in here. So let's go back to that E minor chord since we know it, and now it's going to be 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. And you hear when I'm counting, I'm kind of accenting that 1. That 1 has a little extra emphasis to it.

It's going to be 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.

Okay, so this is going to be our waltz rhythm, and you can see I'm kind of swaying with the music. Okay, that's how you know it's a waltz. It's like your, your body instinctively just wants to, you know, sway with it. Now what we're going to do in between the 2 and the 3, and the 3 and the 1, we're going to add an up strum. It's going to sound like this.

1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3.

All right, now when you're learning a new strumming pattern, tip here: start with one chord. Don't introduce the chord change yet because remember I said where students have timing issues, it's usually for the chord change. So right now we're just going to focus on One strumming pattern, one chord. All right, less is more when we're learning new things. I'm gonna slow it down a little bit. And remember, the hand is a pendulum. Just because we're doing up strums now, don't change anything you're doing with your hand. Remember, it's still doing this. Okay, we're just changing when we're hitting the string.

So it's 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1. 2 and 3 and down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and.

All right, so you notice my hand, it's not doing anything different, okay? It's still doing this pendulum. I'm just deciding when I'm hitting the strings and when I'm not hitting the strings. Now, caveat here, because we have an up strum on the end, our chord change has to be that much faster. But fortunately, like I said, going from E minor to C, okay, not a stretch for a lot of students. So we'll keep this slow in the beginning. I'm going to now introduce the chord change. So this is the challenge, okay?

So we're gonna go 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3.

And so to give you some time, a little extra time to hang out on the chords, we're going to do 2 strumming patterns per chord. Okay, so 2 strummings on, on E minor, 2 strumming patterns on C. Let's give it a try, and this is going to be our tempo.

1, 2, 3.

Okay, 1, 2, 3. Here we go. 1, 2, 3.

1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1.

Right now, if you're having difficulty, if you find like your strumming is falling apart because you can't make that chord change fast enough. It's okay, it's okay. Focus again. Remember, keep the pendulum moving. And I don't care if you're like in the middle of a strum. Don't stop the strumming pattern for this fretting hand. Let the fretting hand catch up. If you need a few strums to get— move this finger, that's okay. The timing is more important right now than getting that chord to switch in time. Okay, that's what we're focusing on. All right, let's do an extra little challenge. Let me just pump it up just a little bit faster. Okay, first let's just do a single chord so we get the timing. Okay, so I'm going to move it up to this. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Ready? Here we go.

2, 3, 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and— on your own.

Okay, now let's throw in the chord change. Ready? 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Now those are two great strumming patterns to learn, but before you leave, I want to go over some other common beginner guitar strumming mistakes. Okay, one of them is this pick. All right, and I talked earlier in the video about relax, and when you're first getting started, you're holding on to this pick so tight because you don't want it to fall on the floor. And I drop my pick on the floor all the time. I've been playing guitar for 20 years, it still happens. Okay, so the key is, yes, we want you to hold on to the pick But if you feel like you're strumming— it's sounding like really like nails on a chalkboard, what you can do, you could change picks. So this is a light pick, okay? You can see it's very flexible. So this pick I have in my hand, this is a Tortex, uh, Dunlop Tortex pick, 0.77 millimeters thick. It's a very medium-sized pick. I find it's a good balance between, um, too soft and too hard. Great for acoustic guitar. But if you're finding that like, oh, you're getting that really, really harsh strumming, you can always go to a thinner pick. This one's 0.5 millimeters. Okay, you can see very flexible. Okay, and what it does is if your hand is very stiff, which most beginners' hands are, that's just a very common thing. It's a new technique. It helps take some of the curse. I'm strumming this just as hard as I was before, but you can see all of a sudden the guitar sounds better because the pick is more flexible, so it's taking some of the tension out of the strum. So that's a good tip for beginners if you want your, um, strumming to sound a little bit better. Another thing is the pick angle. So sometimes students, particularly on the upstrums, they're like, I get this really tinny, like really metallic, harsh, you know, strings on the upstrum. And a lot of times it's because— and again, the light pick will help with this— you're picking very flat. Okay, so when we're picking, and I don't know if you can see it in my hand here, but when we're picking, the pick is gonna move up and down. See, there it goes on the ground. It's gonna move up and down. Alright? So when I'm strumming down, my pick is slowly angled down. Okay, the fat part is angled down. And when I'm strumming up, the fat part is angled up. So you'll notice my wrist, if we go to the close-up here, my wrist is— I kinda call it like the Queen wave.

Hello, hello.

My wrist—

I'm not—

my wrist is not stiff like this. That's gonna get you that— you're gonna get the pick stuck. And that's, again, if you use the lighter pick, it helps with this. But if you use a thicker pick— let me pick my other pick up— back to the thicker pick here just for, uh, showing you. So you'll see my pick is kind of gliding. I'm over-exaggerating a little bit here. So our grip grip on our pick has to be stiff enough for it not to fall on the ground, but loose enough so that there's some flexibility. Okay, and then your wrist changes the angle. That's too much for you right now, don't worry about it. Use the light pick until you get more control over your strumming hand, and then graduate to the thicker pick. Now, just these two strumming patterns will take you a lot further than you think with your strumming. If you can lock in with these, it's going to make learning other strumming patterns so much easier. And if you are looking for a great strumming workout, go check out my strumming workout right there. It's going to show you some extra strumming patterns that are beginner level, and we're going to work on playing through them together. So go check that out right now.